Snippets: Selfies, Sunrises, and Trophies

This is a reoccurring series on Macheesmo that shows life from the point of view of my phone.

I’m still going to therapy for my knee about twice a month. At this point I’m just working on lateral stuff and sprints. The knee is feeling so much better and I’m really glad I had the second surgery.

So it doesn’t interfere with my day, I’ve been going to the very early therapy session at around 7AM. My therapy office is on the top floor of a hospital downtown so I get these beautiful sunrises in the mornings when I go. There are worse ways to start the day for sure.

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Holiday Travels

Betsy and I drove up to Wyoming for the holidays to visit my family. It was a really fun and relaxing visit. The above photo is from our Christmas brunch which was this monkey bread, a quiche, and vats of mimosas.

The one wild card for the trip was that we decided to bring Porter rather than board him for the week. We were seriously concerned because there was going to be a lot of kids around and Porter hasn’t been around too many kids. We were worried he would play too hard with them.

Turns out that he is the best with kids. He let them ride him around and tug on his hair and even play in his food. His best friend during the trip was my step sister’s cute little baby girl. When they were leaving she would always give him a huge hug. Super cute.

Selfies!

2013 was the year of the selfie. To be honest, I don’t take many selfies, but I figured for the holiday season I would get on the selfie train. Here are a few from the last few weeks that I took. And yes, I tied that bow tie and no I won’t tell you how long it took me.

Selfies!

Manimal Update

I take an embarrassing amount of photos of my cat and dog. This is becoming more and more apparent as I get into a rhythm of uploading photos from my phone. Almost all of them are either of food or animals.

It is what it is.

Manimals

Machine of Pain

I rowed in college for one year and spending some time on a rowing machine is still one of the best work outs you can get in my opinion. I’ve been trying to row once or twice a week recently.

These probably won’t mean much to most people, but it means I’m getting better! The top row is basically a race to 6,000 meters which I did 8 seconds faster than a few weeks ago and the bottom row is a timed 30 minute row (split into 5 minutes sprints) where I covered almost 100 more meters the second time. Far from the best times I’ve ever recorded, but headed in the right direction!

Pain.

Oh, and speaking of workouts, I’m super proud of this sucker. With some encouragement from a friend, I made it through this pretty brutal run. This is the longest I’ve ran in probably three years. If you can’t read it, the total distance was about 7.5 miles. As you might imagine, it hurt, but then it felt good.

Random Pics

Bets and I have been in the middle of a six month project to re-upholster some furniture in our living room. We finally got the last two pieces back! These two wingback chairs are from her mom and we picked out the fabric on our own. I love how both turned out but I especially like the patterned one.

This one is a bit embarrassing, but Betsy made me include it. She stole an old trophy from my childhood room while we were in Wyoming. It’s an old speech and debate trophy from 1999. I think she liked the trophy because most trophies depict some sort of action and this is the most action you’ll see in a speech and debate tourney.

This is now hanging in our living room.

First. Place.

Over the holidays I started reading The Dark Tower series which has been on my list to read for a really long time.

I bought the first book brand new from a local bookstore and someone had left a note in the middle of the book. How cool is that?!

If you can’t read it, it says:

“You can’t imagine how this series changed me… you will never be the last of anything only the beginning of something promising!”

I’m not entirely sure how that fits in with the series because I haven’t read it yet, but it makes me excited to dig into it.

13 comments on “Snippets: Selfies, Sunrises, and Trophies”

Hey, I am a runner/rower combo as well – at least, always striving to be. I have been a runner for 17 years (although very on and off since graduating college) and rowed for a year in college because I met my now-husband, who was a rower, and thought it looked fun. We found a steal on a Concept II on Craigslist, so now we can row in our basement. I am trying to get 100% consistent with 2 runs and 1 row each week. Nice improvement in your splits! All that sprinting makes for a pretty hardcore erg workout.

That’s awesome Renee. I really love the running/rowing combo. That’s an awesome tip about snagging a rower. I know they are pretty expensive out of the box, but I bet a lot of people buy them and then never use them. I don’t have the space for one at the moment but hopefully will someday. Thanks for the comment!

Long time reader first time commenter. Dark tower series is amazing. King lost a step a bit with the fifth and sixth one. The first four were amazing though. Wizard and Glass was my personal favorite. The seventh was a nice finale. Enjoy them! Wish I could read them again for the first time! Love the site

I also rowed in college (a couple years) and those splits are damn impressive! I’ve been trying to get back on the machine as well and it’s still a struggle to keep consistent splits for more than 15 minutes. Also, thanks for showing splits and not calories. The ones at the gym are always set to that and it makes me cringe. I applaud the effort. It’s encouraging me to do it more, too! Keep it up!

Thanks Sarah! Good luck getting back on it. What really got me back in the mode was doing five minute intervals. It let me focus on my form and get a quick rest in between. Then I kind of built up to longer times.

Yea. The calorie settings are ridiculous. I don’t even know why they have those. :)

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